CBAIS

There are a variety of listserves available to help digital inclusion practitioners converse. What does not exist is a location for sharing documents and materials. Seems like a simple issue but when one gets into the details, complications arise.

Overview of what is needed - an online location for SBA (Sustainable Broadband Adoption) projects, PCC (Public Computer Center) projects and other digital inclusion projects to share program management, training, outreach and research documents and resources.

Existing compilations of resources:

• DigitalLiteracy.gov (A positive - the resources include descriptions. A negative - resources must be uploaded by NTIA.)
• CTN Bay Area's Resources (A positive - pulls from Delicious account added to by multiple agencies with resources tagged by industry practitioners). A negative - must have access to the account to add resources.)
• CBAIS Wiki (A positive - Anyone can request access to add resources. A negative - the more resources added, the more chaotic the site becomes.)
• Did I miss others?

The details:

• Must be managed but not centrally controlled. This means members must be able to upload their own resources but trained individuals review tagging to ensure tags are correct.
• Needs to be membership based so that uploaded resources and comments come from a known source.
• Needs to include a rating and commenting system so that the most useful resources are easily found. 
• Needs to be super cheap to maintain.
• Recommend tagging resources with the taxonomy used by CTN Bay Area. It was created by digital inclusion practitioners. 

I expect this post will be continually revised as the conversation continues.

Jim Baller moderated an open mic in the session Impact of Broadband Cost on Sustainable Adoption. Here are some of the comments we heard:

• Having a local service provider greases the skids of adoption. (Josh Breitbart)
• Neighbors splitting the cost of a connection. Is that ok? (Bart Gonzalez)
• In rural areas we lack competition and providers are not interested in negotiating. (Sue Shipitalo)
• If program participant has poor credit, cannot get a broadband account. (Cindy Menz-Erb)
• We are not defining cost as the same. Some costs exist from regulatory or government reasons. Other costs are due o the provider. (Chuck McClure)
• Multi-dwelling unit exclusivity agreements restrict broadband choices of residents of housing complexes.

Jim Baller suggested we not call the lack of affordable broadband a cost problem but rather a "cost opportunity". Jim is the expert and I understand figuring out solutions get us further than complaints but I also see a huge value in clearly defining a problem. The fact that broadband is not affordable to all is a problem. It is only an opportunity to those who have solutions. For those of us trying to solve the broadband adoption issue struggling to find solutions, it is a problem.

When I was the Executive Director of the Ohio Community Computing Network (2000-2006), I was often questioned about the future usefullness of our services. The argument was that soon computers would be so cheap everyone would have one so why was a public computer center necessary? Our response focused upon the importance of training in a community setting and the fact that computer ownership will always be out of reach for some.

Fast forward to today. The necessity for community based technology training has not changed much. Yes, computers are cheap.

Yes, more people have them in their homes. Why then, in 2010, were only 67% of whites and 56% of African-Americans broadband users? Because a computer is cheap does not assume ease of use, affordability of broadband or even availability of broadband.

On Sunday I head to Cleveland for the Community Broadband Adoption Impact & Sustainability (CBAIS) Conference. I've been helping OneCommunity organize the conference. Sustainable Broadband Adoption and Public Computing Center projects funded by the Broadband Technology Oppportuniites Program will gather to discuss how we are reducing the barriers to broadband use and all the issues that accompany those attempts.

I'll be live blogging as often as I can during the conference. The frequency of the live blogging will be a clear indication of the logistical and organizational responsibilties I am or am not able to delegate. :-)